Heisler: From Shaq to Lonzo Ball, Lakers’ glorious past to questions about future

Share this:

The Lakers put on quite a show for former center Shaquille O'Neal and the unveiling of his Staples Center statue on Friday. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Lakers president of basketball operations Magic Johnson and Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka, right, missed Shaquille O'Neal's Staples Center statue unveiling on Friday so they could be in Memphis, Tenn., to watch several promising future pros in the NCAA Tournament's South Regional. The Lakers are still searching for the franchise's next superstar, something their top-three protected draft pick could yield if the lottery ping-pong balls bounce their way in May. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

Sound

The gallery will resume inseconds

UCLA guard Lonzo Ball shoots against Kentucky during the second half of their NCAA Tournament South Regional semifinal on Friday in Memphis, Tenn. If the Lakers are fortunate enough to keep their top-three protected draft pick, Ball is among the players they'll surely take a look at, but he has defensive liabilities and his fast-break skills might not be as valuable in today's drive-and-kick, 3-point shot-heavy NBA. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

No one does nostalgia like the Lakers and they never did it better than Friday’s ceremony when it seemed like half the Hall of Fame emptied out to see them unveil Shaquille O’Neal’s statue.

Jerry West, Elgin Baylor (by the way, where’s his statue?), Phil Jackson, James Worthy, Snoop Dogg – even Kobe Bryant telling Shaq’s six children, “Your dad was a baaaad man,” were there. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar zinged Shaq and Kobe, noting many thought there was as much a chance of Kobe showing up as there was of Shaq making a free throw.

If Shaq was, indeed, the Most Dominant Ever as he claimed, so much of his potential was unfulfilled. His charm was boundless nonetheless, repeating his 2000 victory parade chant – “Caaan youuu dig it?”, musing about coming back at 3 or 4 a.m. when the street fair was over to gaze at his statue … even if he thought it looked more like Stone Cold Steve Austin dunking than him … showing how truly humbled he was.

Unfortunately for the Lakers, they’re similarly a memory throughout the NBA, inspiring little thought and no fear. There’s quiet contempt for their “Laker model” and “the Laker brand,” which didn’t even get them in the room with Kevin Durant after all their years focused on the day he would become a free agent.

Of course, they’re now under new management in the person of Magic Johnson, the lone Lakers icon who was missing Friday.

Johnson had more important business than celebrating the past. Now in charge of the future, he was in Memphis for the NCAA Tournament’s South Regional, tracking UCLA’s Lonzo Ball … who went down the drain with the rest of the Bruins, only more spectacularly, outquicked at every point and outscored, 39-10, by lightning-fast Kentucky point guard De’Aaron Fox.

If it was agonizing for the Bruins, it was an important thing for Johnson to see. With the Lakers hopeful of hanging on to their first-round pick, assuming they draw one in the top three, Magic has a huge call coming and not an easy one.

Despite all the draft sites listing Ball as the No. 2 pick after everyone’s fave, Markelle Fultz, it’s not as clear as it seemed going into the NCAA Tournament.

Despite his nightmare in Kansas’ loss to Oregon on Saturday, freshman Josh Jackson, a more refined version of Andrew Wiggins at the same stage of their Jayhawk careers, has thrust himself into the conversation for No. 2.

Wiggins, the uber-athlete, blossomed after arriving in the NBA. At the moment, Jackson is scoring almost as much as he did at Kansas, rebounding 20 percent more (7.2 to 5.9) with almost twice as many assists (2.9 to 1.5).

If it’s not hard to project Jackson at the next level – he’ll be great – the big question is how great.

Everyone knew Michael Jordan would be great, but no one thought he’d be what he was. Not that Jackson is MJ, but the process is always the same. No one is surprised that Devin Booker, who just scored an eye-popping 70 points in Boston, is good but 12 teams passed him up before Phoenix took him at No. 13 in the 2015 draft.

Ball, on the other hand, is hard to project, even aside from his defense, which everyone knows is a problem.

Gifted young playmaker that he is, a UCLA insider told me he had been trying to figure out how much of what made him great at that level would apply in the pros.

Ball is a classic, Magic-style, make-everyone-fly-up-and-down-the-floor playmaker, but the game has changed since “Showtime” in the 1980s. For all the dumb talk about “running” and “transition,” the days of teams rebounding the ball, firing an outlet pass and coming down three-on-two or two-on-one are over.

The great Pete Newell preached that defense started with floor balance on offense. Now teams space the floor on offense with two or three players spotted up on the arc, making it simple to drop back and choke off the fast break. Today’s high-scoring teams like the Warriors, Spurs and Rockets spread opponents out in the half-court and slice them up.

Today’s point guards are pick-and-roll, drive-and-kick artists. It’s not that Ball can’t drive but his vision and the ability to deliver the ball make him special … like Minnesota’s Ricky Rubio, who, for all his gifts, is a middle-of-the-pack point guard.

Ball shoots far better than Rubio but there’s the matter of that left-side-of-his-head release, which keeps him from pulling up on the dribble if he goes right, lest he bring the ball back to the defender.

With D’Angelo Russell’s limitations as a playmaker, no one knows how much the Lakers still need a point guard more than Johnson, the greatest point guard of them all. Nevertheless, the real need isn’t filling a position but finding their next great player and not a mere Paul George, hopeful as they are of landing him in 2018.

Except for ceremonies, it’s hard being a Laker these days. For Mitch Kupchak, the GM they sacked for being too close to Jim Buss despite having had no choice in the matter, it’s a sad irony to see rookie big man Ivica Zubac, whom they stole with the No. 32 pick in last year’s draft, begin to emerge after Mitch got the bad news.

They don’t make family-style organizations the way they used to. Worse was what happened to publicist John Black. With Rob Pelinka becoming the GM, insiders say Black was let go because of lingering bad feelings on the part of Bryant, dating from his days of rage in the summer of 2007 when Kobe was furious with them all from Jerry Buss (“idiot”) down.

These are more times that try Lakers’ souls. If there’s only one way to go … up … they must show their model can still take them anywhere at all.